Life Style : Paperback , édition en langue anglaise (Broché)

This mammoth catalogue raisonné of Mau's graphic work (which only Phaidon Press has the resources, and the patience, to produce) is the much-anticipated follow-up to the 1995 sensation S, M, L, XL that Mau coauthored with renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. Nearly as big, but much more colorful, Life Style offers a compendium of thoughts on the conflicts and conundrums that so perplex concerned aesthetes in Western civilization, including suburban sprawl, ecological threats, the implications of identity creation, and the role of the graphic arts in architecture and design.

Trying to pin down this huge undertaking to only a few highlights would be a disservice to a man who counts such luminaries as Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, John Cage, Michael Snow, Meg Stuart, and Chris Marker as friends and colleagues. The center section alone, which recounts and reprints the celebrated spreads from his publishing venture Zone Books, would be worth the price: "The times were extraordinary--the middle 1980s, the height of American yuppie culture gorging itself on wealth. The Macintosh computer had only just been introduced and was making itself felt in the world of typography by virtue of its capacity to distort fonts. It would eventually transform the field of design, disseminating expertise and clustering capacities vertically. Faxes and FedEx were making possible a new level of international collaboration that would soon put a Toronto designer at the center of a transatlantic project. That project was Zone."

The collaboration at Zone Books enabled some of the most provocative book projects ever seen, and they are reproduced faithfully in Life Style (although one might need a magnifying glass to get the most out of them). Zone was the first and most satisfying of Mau's team projects, and the pleasure of its success is apparent in the book. But readers will find much more of interest documented here, including his revolutionary stint at I.D. Magazine; his brilliant realization of a book version of the underground, classic sci-fi thriller "La Jetée"; and his ideas for information interchange at several major architectural projects, including right here in Seattle, working with his friend Koolhaas in building the controversial new Seattle Public Library.

All things considered, this major book will leave some readers furious at Bruce Mau's audacity and others aghast at his cross-disciplinary influences. I doubt that there's anyone working in design today who has had quite his impact. This book is a beautifully realized celebration of that impact, and very much worth the wait.

By the way, Phaidon has produced this book with eight different and gorgeous fabric covers. Yours might differ from our rather inadequate representation on the site. As with S, M, L, XL, I predict that some day all of them will be (ahem) "coollectors'" items. --Charles Decker --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

More manifesto than monograph, Life Style is the first book to document Bruce Mau’s creative process and studio practice. Written by Mau and designed by his firm, the book is a singular album of perceptive, always thought-provoking, and often playful statements about the visual and cultural trends that influence today’s design culture. This collection of essays, observations, and personal anecdotes interspersed with project documentation manifests Mau’s unique world view and his belief that form and content are inseparable. The book’s format and organization echo his conviction that design is more than an end in and of itself; it is "not separated or segregated from life but instead is integrated with other messy flows … [it] engages directly with the world."

Mau first earned public acclaim as the designer of Zone books, a series of esoteric, visually seductive and highly praised volumes on urbanism, philosophy, and critical theory edited by Sanford Kwinter and Jonathan Crary. The first volume debuted in 1985, the same year that Mau founded his firm. Since that time Mau has maintained an ongoing collaboration with Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and American architect Frank Gehry; devised identity programs for such institutions as the Netherlands Architecture Institute, the Andy Warhol Museum, and the Art Gallery of Ontario; worked with the Getty Research Institute on an expanding range of publications; collaborated with artist Gordon Monahan, filmmaker Michael Snow, and choreography Meg Stuart; and completed projects for Swatch, I.D. Magazine, Metropolis magazine, The Design Exchange, and dozens of other corporate clients and individuals.